


a comfortable distance

by kiden



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 00:15:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15545373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiden/pseuds/kiden
Summary: It's team movie night. John is maybe drunk but probably not, Rodney introspective, Teyla is content, and Ronon is sleeping."John is too close, they are too intwined, and Rodney’s been memorizing the rough callouses on each of his fingers, mapping where they begin and end and identifying their origins, for the last hour. "(repost)





	a comfortable distance

The Athosians make a liquor that most closely resembles rum, dark and spicy, and it’s heavy in the air between them. The rise and fall of John’s chest pushes the scent of it towards Rodney, meeting each exhale of his own, and there’s a kick in the back of his head that says he should get away. John is too close, they are too intwined, and Rodney’s been memorizing the rough callouses on each of his fingers, mapping where they begin and end and identifying their origins, for the last hour. It’s information he doesn’t need, never wanted, hadn’t imagined John would let him have, anyway, so refused to ever think about what those hands would feel like in his own. Now that he knows, however, he’ll never be able to forget, and it’s the reason why Rodney had always been sure they maintained an orbit but never collided. A perfect binary system. The truth of the moment is that it’s unacceptable, but John reaches forward for his drink and when he settles back against the couch he’s closer than before, his left arm still draped around Rodney’s shoulders. His hand still in Rodney’s where he’s holding it lightly against his chest.

If John can feel how fast his heart is beating, when he briefly squeezes Rodney’s fingers, there’s no evidence of it.

On his left, Teyla sighs deeply, the sound twisted at the end in a happy, wistful way. Torren snuffles in his sleep, curling closer to her, and Ronon is sprawled across on the floor, matching the baby’s disinterest in It’s a Wonderful Life with his head pillowed on top of his arms. Teyla had taken a liking to holiday movies right away, seeming to possess an endless curiosity for everything earth despite what the occasional roll of her eyes at their absurdity would have them all believe. Her gravitational pull, right from the beginning, had been towards the Anthropology department, the social sciences in general, which Rodney had been rankled about for longer than he’d ever care to admit. It made sense though, Teyla was Teyla, and would have more to talk about sharing a cup of coffee with Daniel Jackson than him any day of the week.

Still, he’d found himself in awe of her, his chest swelling with warming pride, when he’d discovered her more than proficient at the controls of the Daedalus. Her dedication to learn as much about, well, everything, as she could, yeah, Rodney knows it has little to do with him. But he also knows his eyes still sparkle when she talks his kind of science at him, can see it in the graceful curve of Teyla’s eyebrow, and there’s a certainty that in all the lives he’s lived, in an unaccountable amount of universes, he’s never met anyone like Teyla.

There’s no surprise in the way she loves It’s a Wonderful Life. Teyla, who knows the value of a single human life, who knows in her bones with a conviction Rodney himself has never come close to, that everyone matters.

Rodney knows that she matters. He knows that Ronon, Torren, Kanaan - they matter. Radek, Carson, Jennifer, and Samantha Carter, the small group of people he’s let in, they are the ones who matter.

Jeannie and Madison, and yes, even Kaleb.

And for the life of him, John, who Rodney didn’t doubt for a second he’d rewritten time for. John, who is so close Rodney can smell his shampoo and feel him breathing, his fingers sliding up to his wrist, under the band, to touch his heart beat.

It’s not easy to remind himself there are very real, very good reasons why they shouldn’t be so close. There’s been countless lists saved on his personal tablet, scribbled on post-its, on the inside of books, sometimes, single sentences that say only: Because you’d lose him eventually. It’s difficult to remember why any of it means anything, his lists coupled with the ones he’s sure John has, when all that exists is right now is the slow burning fire aflame everywhere they’re touching. The one that has always been there, no matter how much they both tried to starve it.

Ronon grunts in his sleep and Torren answers with a small whine, which Teyla soothes with her thumb brushing lightly across his forehead. The movie is coming to an end soon, and John will roll away from him as it fades to black, and there will only be coldness in the empty space he leaves. He’s a fool for having let it go so far, for allowing himself to fall against the lean lines of John’s body and let him tuck Rodney under his arm as though he belongs there. As though he’s always been there. It’s the warm blanket of the holidays, that somehow always covers the distance between galaxies, the haze of Teyla’s not-rum - even Rodney’s parents were kinder during the winter months, bundled together on the couch listening to Bing Crosby and pretending not to hate each other. Closing his eyes he can still see Jeannie under the twinkle-lights of the Christmas tree, it’s where she always looks the happiest in Rodney’s memory.

It’s the same look on John’s face now, his content smile holding impossibly deep shadows, the light from the film flickering gently across his laughter lines.

There’d been times during the years before Atlantis that the season came and went without Rodney even noticing. When he had noticed though, he’d think of Jeannie, and remember the mess of powdered hot chocolate mix, of her freckles peaking over a steaming mug and her eyes as bright as a summer sky. Alone in his dorm, apartment, his cat off ignoring him somewhere, in the bitter endless Russian winters, he’d remember the great McKay Santa Claus debates and laugh, only to himself, the sound echoing back at him unmet. 

She’d always been so far away from him on earth. Close enough to touch but distant and unreachable. Now he’s three million lightyears away and she’s so near he can smell her perfume, can hear her daughter laughing in Torren, can feel the way she looks at him, like, Meredith, how can you be so dumb? You’re pretty slow for a smart guy.

Most of the time, he is. But so is John. So he tells the Jeannie that’s always lived in his head, yes thank you, you can be quiet now, and turns away from John’s profile to think about something else.

As if on cue Ronon groans, rolling over onto Rodney’s feet, and stretches himself awake. His eyes still closed he says, “Tell me this movie isn't on still,” and Teyla, careful not to wake Torren, unfolds herself just enough to nudge his shoulder with her foot.

“Shush,” she says, her voice a whisper. “Go back to sleep.”

Just to punctuate her request, Rodney angles his feet upwards and pushes, forcing Ronon back onto his belly. He goes without protest, falling back to sleep almost instantly, and Rodney can feel the way John is laughing - the rumble in his chest, the way his fingers clench against Rodney’s t- shirt. It rolls through him in waves, making him shake, and more than half of it can be blamed on the not-rum but the rest of it -

The point of all the lists had always been to remind himself that it was better never to have what he’d be unable to hold on to. If him and John collided, if they tumbled together with reaching arms and hushed words they’d never be able to take back, it would only be a matter of time before it all shattered, spectacularly and irreversibly. It was a risk Rodney had to convince himself wasn’t worth taking, because he still had John in a way, and that was all that mattered. It was all that was really important. At the end of the day, each and every day, John was still filling Rodney’s empty spaces and, somehow, rounding his sharp edges.

And he could be with someone else. Was with Katie, and then Jennifer, and he could piece together an equation to make it work. Ignoring how Jennifer’s hands felt too small sometimes, her nails too long, her lipstick staining his mouth in a way that always made him feel like he was stealing something, too dishonest to deserve the love she’d given him freely.

John, Rodney knows, can’t do the same. Couldn’t live with himself if he tried. Because John loves him, deeply and breathtakingly so, and what Rodney is sure of is that John isn’t good at juggling. For someone so emotionally stunted, John loves with his entire body, with every inch of himself, and while Rodney is living in the most precious parts of his chest there isn’t room for anyone else to sneak in, even just to cling to the perimeter. Some days Rodney wishes that John would stop, that he could find a way to turn it off, because if they are never going to be an ‘us’ John deserves to find it elsewhere.

Other days, the days it doesn’t matter how many times he goes over his lists, he tells himself that John moves at a cautious pace, careful of his old wounds, and that when the time is right they’ll find themselves laughing over years of stolen looks and lingering touches.

Teyla’s head comes to rest on his shoulder, followed quickly by the rest of her as she shifts closer. There’s maybe ten minutes of the movie left and John’s arm tightens around him, his thumb rubbing circles against Rodney’s chest. Ten minutes is too much time, and not enough. Time is always funny that way.

Rodney is tracing the wrinkles of John’s knuckles, feeling the bone beneath skin, and the delicate palm of his hand, and almost makes a sound of complaint when John pulls away from his touch. Whatever spell they’ve been under is disappearing as fast as it came. In just a snap of his fingers.

Except John’s hand moves from his chest to his forehead, pushing back into his hair, holding Rodney close in the same way he’s covered him off-world, pulling Rodney down and against him and away from gunfire.

His name falls out of Rodney’s mouth before he can stop it, even knowing it’ll break whatever is happening for good, but John’s hand moves fast from the top of his head to his mouth, covering it. Shutting him up. And Rodney makes a weak sound of protest, just on principal. The look on his face is nothing if not amused, the corners of his eyes crinkled just perfectly, and he pats Rodney’s face twice before moving his hand back where it was. It’s amazing, really, that the times when Rodney wonders the most why he loves John at all are often the moments the reasons are painfully obvious.

It’s not long before John is pushing his feet against Ronon, jolting him awake, all the while keeping Rodney exactly where he is. “Wake up, Chewie,” he says, as Ronon swats at his feet, rolling away towards the projector. “You keep falling asleep during movie nights and we’re going to stop inviting you.”

“Watch something better and I’ll stop falling asleep,” Ronon says, a friendly smile on his face as he rises to his feet. If he’s surprised by the way they are curled together on the couch, it doesn’t show, but his eyes grab Rodney’s for a few heart beats, a meaning in them that’s indecipherable.

“He means something with explosions,” Rodney says, averting his eyes. “He’s only interested if someone is blowing up a shark.” Ronon concedes to Rodney’s statement with a shrug and holds out his arms to Teyla, who hands over Torren in one sweeping movement.

“Breakfast tomorrow?” she says, and suddenly her hand is wrapped around Rodney’s, holding on tightly, and somehow he knows she’s telling him to stay put. Rodney’s only answer is a slight nod and a smile and Teyla grins to match it, her gaze moving up to John’s hand in Rodney’s hair, just for a moment.

“Night, Sheppard,” Ronon says. Torren has wrapped his tiny body around Ronon’s, as much as he can, his face hidden in his dreadlocks. “McKay,” he grunts, a mischievous look on his face as he flicks him lightly on the cheek.

Teyla says goodnight to John by pressing their foreheads together, full of meaning and heaviness, as though they are having an entire conversation the rest of them aren’t privy to. And maybe they are, because John takes a deep breath and nods as she pulls away, slipping out of the room without another word.

Just them now, in the dark, Rodney’s lizard brain - the amygdala - is insisting that this is it. One first and last moment of closeness and John is going to break away from the gravitational pull between them, spin out and away without him. The worry is gone quickly though as John moves in closer to him, his hand now curled at Rodney’s cheek, brushing against the grain of his stubble. A small spark of reasoning alights in Rodney’s mind at the gentleness of John’s touch - if he’s not pulling away, John is binding them together, pushing them into a decaying orbit, readying for collision.

“I don’t,” John’s voice is hoarse, just a rumble of thunder between them, “I’m so-.”

“Bad at this, yeah,” Rodney supplies, and John’s mouth breaks into an easy grin. “Keep in mind you don’t have to say anything I’m already aware of.”

“That helps,” John says, and uncurls his fingers to hold Rodney’s face in his hand. “I thought it might.” 

Finally, John looks at him. Really looks at him. Even in the low-light of the room Rodney can see the vibrant colors of his eyes, green and a soft brown, a playful hint of blue that he’s never seen before, having never been close enough to notice. His jaw tight, John swallows thickly, steeling himself, then says, “I don’t want to sit through another Keller.”

“Well, good news for you,” Rodney says, taking note that his fingers have found their way to the hem of John’s shirt and twisted into the fabric. “I have no plans to go that route again. It’s this or dying alone with a cat. Which, by the way, the only reason I’m not cleared for a cat is they’d have to allow Zelenka to drag pigeons across three million -.”

“Rodney,” John cuts him off, amused, his voice stretching around the first syllable like only he can do. How he could have ever convinced himself that John - that they weren’t worth the risk is beyond belief.

The only thing Rodney can do is shrug and slump forward, pressing his face to the cup of John’s hand. The first brush of his lips is a whisper against his forehead, the second to his cheek, and John tilts Rodney’s face up to kiss his mouth. It’s brief, barely a kiss at all, but he stays close and breathes shakily, to steady the both of them, his fingers moving to the nape of Rodney’s neck. Rodney closes the small distance between them this time, kissing John softly until it’s a dam breaking.

When they finally pull apart, John is breathing just as heavily as Rodney, his chest a rapid rise and fall, wearing the same expression he usually reserves for big guns and warships. “No backing out,” Rodney says, holding John’s face in his hands. “For either of us. I’m serious, John.”

“Won’t,” John says, between kisses. “Can’t, Rodney. You’re stuck with me, remember?”

John’s mouth tastes like Teyla’s not-rum, like the terrible gingerbread cookies Cadman forced them all to eat earlier in the day, and Rodney drinks him in because he’s finally allowed to. Knows that John feels the same.


End file.
